Persuasive Essay On Inequality In Education

In his article, “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”, Jonathan Kozol points out, whether we are aware or not, how American public schools are segregated. Schools that were segregated twenty-five to thirty years ago are still segregated, and schools that had been integrated are now re-segregating. The achievement gap between black and white students, after narrowing for a few decades, started to widen once again in the early 1990s when federal courts got rid of the mandates of the Brown decision and schools were no longer required to integrate.

In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as part of his “war on poverty” in hopes of closing the achievement gap between low income schools, which typically house larger percentages of student of color, and their more affluent counterparts. The act has been redefined and reauthorized every five years since its original enactment. However, despite the last 50 years of education reform, the disparity amongst high and low poverty schools is as large as it ever was. In turn, the disparity between students of color and white students has only grown. Clearly, the one size fits all approach to education America has been using does not work. The U.S public education system is broken and, as a country, very

Today—nearly fifty years after the Brown decision—explicit endorsements of school segregation have been erased from all state and federal laws, yet the faces of American schools remain eerily similar to those of the 1950s. Current funding inequalities between poor and wealthy districts perpetuate the same inequalities between the races that state-sponsored segregation once did.

Education is a valuable service in society that strengthen a workforce, a nation and bring forth awareness. Why should this be limited based on race or because of economic reasons, the quality should represent where the schools are located, if they are public? The Public School system belongs to society and those who contribute to what supports the education system. In choosing Brown v. Board of Education, a case which continues to have a great impact to this day, taking into consideration what was occurring at the time is how this case can be fathom. Today, equality is flawed, but far from the injustices of the 50s. However, steps such as the case of Brown v. Board of Education, others alike, and they were more than a court cases; the revolution needed for change. “On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling, which declared that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal” (The Learning Network, 2012).

In “Opinion of the Court in Brown v Board of Education” (1954) Chief Justice Earl Warren argues that “separate but equal” has no place in American public education. Justice Warren goes on to support his claim by saying that black and white schools can never be equal because there are intangible things that go into a child’s learning that cannot be measured; therefore, if these things cannot be measured it can never be certain that the black and white schools are equal. In order to demonstrate the intangible inequities in segregated schools, Justice Warren recounts previous court cases where black students were placed at a disadvantage because they were sent to separate schools that were inherently unequal, despite having “equal facilities.”

Education has been a staple necessity throughout the United States for years. From an early age, children attend school in order to learn concepts that will better prepare them for success in the future. Since Brown v. Board of Education, a nineteen fifty four court case that declared segregation in the United States public school system holds no ground, integration has been essentially mandated between blacks and whites in the education program (Hannah-Jones, 2014). Over the years, however, the system has received many alterations, such as a division between blacks and whites through poverty, that challenges the ideas of integration in the school system. These new economic and social issues bring into question whether or not the school

As a nation, we currently provide foundational education (K-12) to any and all. Despite the fact that public schools have built the educational foundation within the United States, these schools can be riddled with inequalities that target marginalized identities. Due to the prevalence of inequality within public schools, many are fighting for the reformation of these schools. Many public schools do not obtain enough funding from the state or federal level, as a result, these schools rely on funding from the local level, which is detrimental to the development of schools in low-income communities. These classist boundaries create public schools that are overcrowded, underfunded, and required to follow an ineffective uniform model of teaching based on curriculum expectations. According to the United States Department of Education, failing to ensure that districts start with a ‘level playing field’ in terms of federal funding allocated to support student needs, both creates and exacerbates a system of ongoing inequity. According to American Progress, schools with 90 percent or more students of color spend a full $733 less per student per year than schools with 90 percent or more white students (Spatig-Amerikaner, 2012). The system does not distribute opportunity equitably, as much of the public education funding is derived from local property

Even in the 21st century the United States public school system is once again becoming segregated by race. Results of research show there are several factors involved in this trend, including housing discrimination and the United States Supreme Court granting the states sovereignty to govern their own policies on school desegregation; even going so far as to say the policies employed by states to desegregate based on race were unconstitutional. This topic addresses the issues causing resegregation and the ideas set forth to alleviate the problem and insure equal education for all children, regardless of race or socio-economic status.

It’s been 60 years since the Supreme Court struck down the concept of “separate but equal” schools in Brown v. Board of Education, but today, most black students attend schools that are majority non-white. The percentages of black students attending a majority-non-white school today is 74.1 percent, it is little changed from figures in the 1960s. Nearly 40 percent of black children attend schools that are almost entirely (more than 90 percent) non-white. “Americans simultaneously believe that schools are places where social inequalities should be equalized, where the advantages or disadvantages that children experience in their homes and families should not determine what happens to them in school-in essence, that school is a place where children should have equal chances to make the most of their potential.” (Inequality) The 1991 article Savage Inequalities written by Jonathan Kozal highlights the fact that every person is entitled to the right to receive quality care and education. Kozal, revealed there can be overwhelming social factors that prevent students in a small Illinois town from getting an equal education. The author shrewdly described the morbid living conditions experienced by the residence of East St. Louis, Illinois. A predominately black community near the banks of the Mississippi River. However, despite the conditions that the city 's kids must endure, these students refuse to wallow in misery. The didn’t believe the hype. Even though, these students have

“Persistent school segregation does not only mean that children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds attend different schools, but their schools are also unequal in their performance” (Logan, Minca, and Adar, 2012, p. 40). Although segregation is not done intentionally, the negative effects of this are seen in urban school districts. This is evident in high stakes test scores and the graduation rates when compared to their suburban peers. This paper will argue that the schools themselves, including teachers, are a piece of the puzzle that continues to spread inequality in our urban educational system.

Kozol notes discrepancies in the education system, especially while focusing on schools with student bodies of different races and economic backgrounds. In fact, he conducts numerous studies with regard to disparities in schooling, which can be seen across regions that differ in their racial composition and wealth. For instance, he makes various observations in Washington D.C., Chicago, New York, and Cincinnati, which reveal the extent of disunity in the learning structure throughout the nation. Kozol’s findings provide a key insight, namely that the inconsistencies in the education system ultimately translate into vast disparities among students’ individual contributions to the society once they finish school. Ideally, the education system should offer everyone equal opportunities to best discover their talent and potential, allowing them to become productive members of society. However, in reality there exists a lot of unpredictability in the education system across the United States, which results in students being nurtured in dissimilar environments with vast discrepancies in the quality and cost of their schooling (Kozol 11). For instance, some of the schools in New Jersey are reportedly spending the lowest per capita amount of $3,000 on their students, whereas some schools spend up to $15,000 in Long Island. Such variations in raw expenditure cannot reasonably be expected to result in the

Residential segregation plays a huge role into public school resegregation and more that 20 million students of color now attend racially and socioeconomically isolated public schools. The largest discrepancies in public school funding occurs because local cities delegated how property taxes fund schools. Education is most paid for with the amount of money available in surrounding districts therefore the inequity between wealthier and poorer schools continues to exist. The other problem that stems from how schooling is unequally funded it that often punishes poor white, black, and brown children for their inherited circumstances in life. The most nefarious of abuses to blacks occurs in public education as they are divested of the opportunity to be educated on their terms in ways that foster success, which begins with healthy racial identity development and positive affirmation that blackness

The gap between rich and poor communities have only grown over the years. This is more noticeable now than ever before and can be seen very clearly in The United States education system. A closer look at it will show an immense difference in terms of resources between wealthy and financially disabled schools. In 2001, President George W. Bush, signed the No Child Left Behind Act to assure “every child receive a first-class education in America” (Porter). Although he had good intention, The United States remains to be one of the few developing nations that gives more resources to school with privilege students (Porter). In particular, the New York State education system is biased and in favored of rich communities and often harms the underserved,

One of the most prominent problems in the U.S. educational system is that there is an unfair inequality of schooling between wealthier and poorer populations because of the school funding system. Schools are funded unevenly depending on the general household income of its locals; higher income areas have better funded schools and low income areas have lower funded schools because the schools run on what can be provided by the public. This

Civil rights promise equal treatment under the law, and it is required by law that all children must go to school. Under this law, it follows that children should receive equal treatment in their education. Education is a vital aspect of children’s lives to educate and provide a good foundation for their life. However, not all public schools are equal. This was demonstrated in the segregated schools where African American students received a lesser quality of education compared to their white peers. The fight for education equality continues; the inequality is seen in the varying states and school districts who run their schools differently and are made up of different constituents, which affects the quality of schooling that different